The Bough Unbowed
by loveleee
Summary: "I don't need it," Peeta says firmly. "I don't want anything from you." And it's not true, there are things he wants from Katniss; her smile, her laugh, her warm breath on his neck, her body moving beneath his in the dark. But he doesn't want them as part of an exchange. He wants them because she wants him to have them. (AU - Gale dies in the Hunger Games.)
1. part one - Peeta

**The Bough Unbowed**

_she had no heart so hardened  
all under the boughs unbowed_

Peeta is not surprised when Gale Hawthorne is reaped for the 74th games. Gale's 18 years old, the eldest sibling of four, a Seam boy - his name coming out of that bowl is almost an inevitability.

A thousand eyes watch in silence as Gale walks up to the stage, jerking his arm away from the Peacekeeper tasked to herd him up the steps. But Peeta looks across the way, to his right, where Katniss Everdeen stands with the other sixteen-year-old girls. She's standing stone-faced and still, her gaze straight ahead, unblinking.

.

The Gamemakers score Gale a 10. For a District 12 tribute, it's pretty incredible. He must have shown them his hunting skills, Peeta thinks. A bow and arrow could catch him squirrels, rabbits, deer...

It could catch him a child.

.

Gale's handsome, fast, strong - he could be the next Finnick Odair. But his interview is a disaster. Caesar Flickerman tries his best, but the young man's words are contemptuous, careless, flippant. He doesn't want the crowd to love him, and he wants them to know it.

In the very last few seconds, though, his eyes soften and he says: _Katniss, I love you. I'm coming back to you, I swear._

.

Peeta feels sick in that moment, because he knows how this story will go. Gale will return a Victor, sweep Katniss off her feet and carry her away to his beautiful house in the village. He'll kiss her, make love to her, marry her. They'll have children who will never feel hunger.

Gale will do all the things that Peeta wants to do, the things he wishes desperately for, and Gale will deserve each and every one of them - because he grew up with her, because he is a good man, because he survived against the odds. Because Katniss _loves _him.

.

That's not how the story goes.

Gale Hawthorne comes in third place in the 74th annual Hunger Games. A bolt of lightning strikes him in the middle of a rainstorm as he's running for shelter, and it's so perfectly random that it can only have been a deliberate move by the Capital. A warning.

Peeta can feel his brothers' eyes on him as the sound of a cannon's blast rings out tinny from the television. They know about Katniss. That night, in the bedroom they share, they'll say to him: _Maybe you've got a shot now, Peeta. _He'll curl away from them, pretend not to hear, to be asleep.

He didn't want _this. _He only wanted her.

.

Peeta doesn't attend the funeral. He and Gale weren't friends, weren't even acquaintances, really, and it would be strange. Instead he sneaks a loaf of bread when his mother isn't looking and carries it to the Seam, knowing it will be empty during the memorial service. He leaves it on the front step of the Hawthornes' house. He's embarrassed by how little it looks, how little it will do for a family of four, but his mother would have noticed two loaves missing, and then he'd never be able to do this again.

.

By some miracle, his mother doesn't notice, and Peeta develops a routine: steal the bread on Saturday, hide it beneath his bed, rise early on Sunday mornings and leave the loaf on the doorstep. He does this for weeks, summer fading into fall, until one morning a voice behind him demands:

"What are you doing?"

Peeta drops the bread clumsily and stumbles back away from the house. It's Katniss.

"Hi," he says. "Um, I was just leaving them some bread."

She's clearly come from the forest, her boots caked with mud, a piece of dead leaf caught in the end of her braid. Her game bag is slung over her shoulder. There's a thin brown rope running through the belt loops of her pants, tightly knotted at the front. She looks thin.

"Why?"

It's a question Peeta's asked himself many, many times. _Why? _He'd eventually settled on the reasonable answer: The Hawthornes are not only a poor family, but a big family. Their primary breadwinner is gone. Peeta's family is big, too, but they can spare a loaf of bread each week.

(There is another reason, of course, one that isn't sensible, one that hums along in the back of his mind every step of the way.)

"I want to help," he says simply.

"Do you help every tribute's family?"

"No," he admits, his heart jumping into his throat as she steps closer.

"Have you been doing this all along?"

"No." He swallows. "I've been bringing it since...you know."

Katniss frowns, staring down at the crumpled brown bag that sits on the front step. "Hazelle didn't tell me someone was leaving bread." She shakes her head. "He...he wouldn't have wanted this. He didn't want charity."

Peeta doesn't know what to say. Gale is dead; his family isn't.

"What are _you _doing here?" he blurts out. "It's so early."

Katniss' hand drifts absently to her game bag. "I had to go hunting early this morning."

"So you're bringing them food." Katniss nods silently. "So why is it charity when I do it, but not when you do?"

He regrets it immediately; she looks away, jaw clenched, and he wants to apologize. He almost does.

"Because I made a promise. Because you don't _know _them," she says finally, and her gray eyes meet his, and he knows now that they're not just talking about a loaf of bread for the Hawthornes anymore.

"Maybe I want to know them," he says softly, and he can see that she knows it, too, because her eyes widen just the slightest bit, and a hint of color returns to her cool, dark cheeks.

"Don't do this again," Katniss says stiffly. She bends down and picks up the loaf of bread, cradling it in her arms. "This is the last one." She disappears inside the house.

.

It's not the last one.

.

The next time she sees him outside the house, three weeks later, she shakes her head. "You don't listen, do you," she says, dark eyes slightly narrowed.

"Nope," Peeta replies. He'd thought about it: what kind of person would he be if he stopped helping a family survive, just because a girl rejected him? A terrible person. Not himself - not the person his father would want him to be. And so he kept bringing the bread.

Katniss sighs heavily and swings her game bag off of her shoulder, digging through it aggressively. "Fine. Take this," she says, thrusting something at him. In the dim light he can just barely make out the form of a rabbit, blood matted into its fur. He feels queasy at the sight of it. He's never been good with blood, with dead things.

"I don't need it," he says firmly. "I don't want anything from you." And it's not true, there are things he wants from Katniss; her smile, her laugh, her warm breath on his neck, her body moving beneath his in the dark. But he doesn't want them as part of an exchange. He wants them because _she _wants him to have them.

She steps closer, the rabbit dangling by its ears from her shaky hand. "You have to," she insists, her voice catching. "Please, just take it."

He weakens at the desperation in her voice. He doesn't understand _why_this is so important to her - only that it is. "I can't carry a dead rabbit through town with me," he says, licking his dry lips.

She knows he's right, and she glances at the house behind them, still dark and quiet in the early morning. "Wait here," she says. "I'll walk with you."

.

Katniss seems surprised when he's still there twenty minutes later, waiting patiently by the front door. "Sorry," she mutters, and he thinks she means _for keeping you waiting_, but it's hard to tell with her.

"S'okay," he shrugs.

She shakes the game bag a little, and he can see there's something in there - the rabbit. He nods, and they set off for town.

After a few minutes of silence Peeta realizes that the things he knows about Katniss Everdeen - that she sings like an angel, that their parents dated in their youth, that Gale Hawthorne loved her - are not things he can discuss with her. Not now, anyway. So he asks, "How's your sister?"

Katniss looks at him suspiciously. "How do you know my sister?"

"I don't." Peeta pauses. "I've seen you with her. I've seen you bring her by the bakery, to look at the cakes."

She nods, looking down at the ground. "She's fine."

"How come...how come you two never come inside?" he asks hesitantly. A frown creases her forehead.

"We can't _afford _anything," she says finally. "Your mother made it clear we're not welcome."

Peeta snorts. "My mother..." He shakes his head. "She's not always there. If you look in the window and it's me, you should come in."

"Sure," she says, in the way that means _no, never. _

The sun is just beginning to peek over the horizon when they reach the bakery. Katniss follows Peeta to the back entrance, by the pig pens, and pulls the rabbit once more from her bag. He takes it gingerly, holding it far away from his body, and he thinks he sees her suppress a smile at his squeamishness.

"Are you sure I can't give you something for this?" he asks quietly, nodding towards the door. "One more loaf of bread?"

"No," she says simply, turning away, and he knows not to argue. Peeta sighs.

"Okay. Bye, Katniss."

She glances over her shoulder, as if she'd already forgotten he was there. "Bye."

.

"What is this?" Peeta's mother demands, dropping a package on the table before him. It's Katniss' rabbit. He'd carefully wrapped it in paper and tucked it away in a corner of the kitchen that morning, intending to give it to his father, but she'd found it first.

"A rabbit," he says carefully. His mother hasn't hit him in two or three years - not since he grew taller and stronger than her - but her words can be just as bad as her fists.

"Where did you get a rabbit?"

"I traded it," he says. Sometimes it disturbs Peeta himself, how easily he lies to his own family. "The girl from the Seam started coming around again." Katniss had stopped showing up with her squirrels after the last reaping.

"I didn't tell you you could trade with her," his mother snaps. "How much did you give her for this?"

"One loaf of the sourdough." It's close enough to the truth. She stares at him for a long moment, clearly having some kind of internal debate. One loaf of bread for an entire rabbit is an excellent trade. But Peeta doesn't do excellent things; only foolish, clumsy things.

"She's a stupid girl," she mutters, walking away. "A rabbit's worth at least three."

.

Somehow, slowly, Peeta's Sunday routine becomes _their _Sunday routine. Katniss meets him in the early morning on the Hawthornes' front step, slips inside to do - something, he's never quite sure what, and he's never invited - and walks with him to the back of the bakery. She gives him a rabbit, or a few squirrels, occasionally a bird, and he offers her bread or sweets. She always refuses them. And then she leaves.

They have a few classes together in school, and they eat lunch at the same time, but they never speak. He would - he wants to - but he doesn't want to jeopardize the tentative companionship that blooms between them in the early morning light each week. So instead he averts his eyes when they pass one another in the hallway or enter a classroom together. And she's always there on Sunday.

"You should really get your own game bag," she tells him one morning, but there's a hint of teasing to her tone. He smiles, and she smiles back. He thinks, _this could happen, someday._

.

Peeta's good at getting people to talk - and though it's harder with Katniss, he wears her down.

Mostly she talks about Prim. He likes to listen to her talk about her younger sister, to experience the kind of love and pride that only siblings can feel for one another, even if it's secondhand. Katniss tells him funny stories about Prim's pet cat and goat, about the old man who visits her mother at least three times a week seeking help for ailments that don't even exist, about Gale's family, who think it's the baker himself and not his youngest son who leaves them bread every week.

"You never tell me about yourself," he says one day, keeping his voice light.

"There's not much to say," she replies, looking away.

"I don't know. I bet you're a lot more interesting than you think."

"Can we walk a little faster?" she says. "I have things to do today."

.

Fall turns to winter and the mornings grow colder, much colder. Peeta notices that Katniss' bag grows lighter with the passing weeks; she still brings him a squirrel or two on Sundays, but they're smaller, skinnier. Her thin winter coat isn't enough to keep her warm and when he tucks his arm around her on their walk to town she leans into him for one brief, delicious moment before pulling away.

"Someone might see," she explains, and he nods, though he'll never understand why that would be such a terrible thing.

.

The week before the New Year he finally gathers his courage. She hands him a squirrel as usual, and he bends down, placing it gently on the ground. She frowns, confused. "What are you -"

He places his warm hands on her cold, hollow cheeks and presses his lips to hers.

Katniss makes a sound of alarm in the back of her throat and Peeta breaks the kiss, but she doesn't pull away. Her eyes are wide and frightened, like an animal who's just realized it's caught in a snare. He drops his hands from her face, taking one of her gloved hands in his own. Hers is trembling.

Peeta looks at her steadily, willing her to be calm. Their breaths mingle in the air between them, little white clouds of warmth in the winter chill. He leans in again, and this time she kisses back.

"I really like you," he breathes, their foreheads pressed together.

"I know," Katniss whispers. "But...we can't."

Peeta drops a soft kiss on her forehead, then her cold, red-tipped nose. "Why not?"

She doesn't answer, and he shuffles forward, the toes of their shoes bumping together awkwardly. He backs her up until she's pressed against the side of the bakery, and he moves in for a deeper kiss, touching his tongue just slightly to the crease between her lips. She parts them in response, her hands settling on the middle of his back, pulling him closer. Peeta thinks he might die, thinks he might _want _to, because surely life can't get better than this.

.

By early February it's slipped into their routine more naturally than either could have imagined: meet at the Hawthornes', walk to the bakery, kiss, say goodbye.

"I want to see you more. Outside of this," Peeta tells her one morning as they walk towards the bakery, hands brushing together but never clasped.

Katniss looks down at her feet, chewing on her lip. "I don't know," she says finally. "Where would we even go?"

It's a good question - he can't bring her into the apartment over the bakery, because then his mother will know. She'd bristle at any suggestion involving school. It's too cold outside to spend time together in the town square, or the meadow in the Seam, or even - he swallows - the slag heap. "Your house?" he says, knowing she'll never agree.

But she's quiet, thoughtful, for a long moment. "Maybe," she says, and he turns his head so she can't see the ridiculous grin stretched across his face.

Two weeks later they're in their usual spot by the bakery's back door, kissing breathlessly, when Katniss pulls away abruptly. "Our neighbor's having a baby," she says. "Her contractions started this morning but my mother said it's going to be a long labor. She and Prim might be gone all night."

It takes him a while to understand why she's babbling about babies and contractions, and then realization washes over him. "Oh." _They'll be gone all night_. His groin stirs at the thought, and he's glad his cheeks are already flushed, or she'd see him blushing. "So...do you want to...hang out?" She nods, and he kisses her again softly. "When?"

Katniss shrugs. "After dinner?"

"Okay." He smiles down at her. "I'll be there."

.

She gives him directions to her home, using the Hawthornes' as a reference point, and she's so flustered she almost forgets to give him his squirrel before leaving. "I don't need this, you know," he reminds her, but she only shakes her head and waves as she walks away.

Peeta can't keep the smile off his face all day, and when his brothers and father take a break for lunch he settles at a table in the corner of the kitchen and pipes frosting onto a little stack of sugar cookies. He makes a lily, a primrose, a dandelion; he wishes he knew what a katniss flower looked like, but if he asked anyone he'd give himself away.

He rushes through dinner - a hearty stew - and tells his family he's off to a friend's to study. About an hour after sundown, he's knocking on her front door.

Katniss answers the door after the longest ten seconds of his life, and she smiles at him nervously. She's dressed in pants and a long-sleeved shirt, something that she'd wear on a regular day at school, but her hair falls in loose waves over her shoulders, ending just above her waist. He thinks she looks beautiful.

"I brought these," he says, handing her the package of cookies, and she takes them to the kitchen table, where they sit. She spreads the cookies out on a plate and studies each one carefully, her mouth curving up into a smile as she recognizes each flower.

"I'll have to save this one for Prim," she says of the primrose cookie, but her face goes slack when she sees the dandelion. She looks at him, eyes wide. "How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"Nevermind," she says quickly. "Thank you, Peeta. These are beautiful."

"Thanks." He smiles crookedly. "Not too beautiful to eat, I hope."

Katniss laughs. "No, not too beautiful for that." She breaks the sunflower cookie in two and hands him one half, and they eat together quietly, contently.

When they've finished, Peeta clears his throat. "So your mother and Prim...they deliver babies?"

Katniss nods. "Prim mostly watches, hands her supplies, things like that. So she can learn to do it herself one day."

"You're not interested?"

She wrinkles her nose. "No, I don't like to see people in pain...I don't like blood." At his incredulous look, she smiles. "_Human _  
blood."

Peeta laughs. "I was gonna say." He edges his chair a little closer. "So what _do _you want to do after we're done with school?"

"I don't know..." Katniss presses her fingertip to the cookie plate and lifts it to her mouth, licking the crumbs off. Desire floods through him at the glimpse of her soft, pink tongue. "I hadn't really thought about it. I might get reaped before then."

"You won't get reaped," he says automatically, though he has nothing to back it up. He knows she takes out tesserae; not as many as Gale Hawthorne had, but still. They add up.

"What about you?" she asks. "Do you want to run the bakery?"

"I do." Peeta nods. "But I don't know. Ned and Brody get first dibs since they're older, so I might have to find something else."

"Oh. That's too bad." They're quiet for a moment, and then she says abruptly, "Do you want to play a card game?"

Peeta shrugs. "Um, sure."

"We don't have to," she says. "I just - I'm not sure what to do. I haven't spent time with...a friend...since..."

Is that how she thinks of him? A friend? Peeta isn't sure how he'd label his relationship with Katniss, but he doesn't kiss his friends. He doesn't ignore them at school, and bring them home only when his family is gone. If he's a friend, he wonders what Gale had been.

"No, I like card games," he assures her, determined to steer away from those avenues of thought. "I'm just surprised. You don't seem like the type."

"I like to play," she says with a smile, and he knows that she said it with nothing but innocent intentions, but it sends a jolt of heat straight to his groin nonetheless.

"Alright," he says. "Let's play."

.

They settle onto the couch and she teaches him a game called gin rummy. Peeta keeps mixing up the rules, and she thinks it's funny, but he wonders what she'd think if she knew it was because all he can concentrate on is the curve of her neck and the swell of her breasts.

Eventually, he gives up fighting it. Instead of taking his turn, he sets his cards down, scoots closer and captures her mouth in a kiss, running his hands around her waist. Her own cards flutter to the floor.

Peeta leans her back, her dark hair fanning over the pillow at the end of the couch. They kiss for a while, but the tension never leaves her limbs, and he realizes her feet are still planted on the floor beneath them. She's twisted at the waist, and it can't be comfortable.

"Put your feet up," he says gently, and she does, shifting them onto the cushions. He settles between her legs, his pelvis resting against hers, and he holds back a groan. Every other time they've kissed there were so many layers between them, boots and sweaters and coats and gloves, and now there's just the thin fabric of their shirts and their pants. Now he can feel the heat of her body, the rise and fall of her chest, her heartbeat pounding beneath her ribcage.

Peeta kisses her deeply, his tongue edging into her hot mouth, and he shivers slightly as her cool hands run over his lower back, beneath his shirt. He whispers kisses across her jawline, her earlobe, before he settles on her neck, sucking gently at the soft skin.

"Oh," Katniss gasps lightly, stretching her head back, and he sucks harder, breathing roughly against her neck.

He's so lost in the taste of her, the feel of her, that he doesn't realize his hips are moving at all until she grips them in her hands, pausing their steady motion. He's hard. He freezes, embarrassed, certain that she'll kick him out now, never look at him again.

But she doesn't. Tentatively, she lifts her own hips up into his, his erection pressing against the heat between her legs. He moans her name into her neck and she squeezes her legs around him tighter.

Peeta kisses her again, a long kiss, and he pulls back to look her in the eyes. "I'm not...I don't...I didn't come here just to do this," he stammers. "I don't only want..."

"I know," she says, and he can't read her expression; it could be fear, excitement, lust, anything. Not for the first time he thinks that no matter how close he gets to Katniss Everdeen, he'll never _know _her. But for the first time, it scares him.

"Okay," he says, and he dips his head to her collarbone.

.

Somewhere along the way, Peeta's shirt ends up on the floor. He pulls back, fingering the hem of hers nervously. He's seen a girl's breasts before, but this is different. This is _the _girl. He brushes her hair back from her face with his other hand. "Can I?"

Katniss sucks in a breath, then slowly nods. She sits forward and he pulls the fabric over her head; it feels like unwrapping a gift. But his face falls when he sees what he's uncovered.

"Oh, Katniss," he says without thinking, flooded with concern. "You're so _thin._"

She looks startled, then scowls, wrapping her arms around her middle, attempting to cover herself. "I'm fine," she says, but he can see the faint ridge of her ribcage peeking between her fingers.

"I didn't know," he whispers, thinking of her game bag, how it grew lighter and lighter with the passing weeks, of the rope he'd seen knotted around her hips until she'd started buttoning her coat all the way against the winter chill. She'd been giving her food away - to her family, to Gale's family, to _him. _And he'd taken it, every time.

"I'm fine," she repeats, voice trembling, and she reaches for her shirt. "Give it back. You don't -"

Then the front door opens.

"Katniss?" Prim makes it halfway to the darkened living room before she realizes there's another person in the room with them - a half-naked person. "Oh! Oh no! I'm sorry!"

Katniss scrambles away from Peeta, clutching a pillow over her chest. "Prim," she gasps out, "What are you doing here?"

"Mom needed more ointment!" the younger girl calls, already in another room. "I swear I'll be gone in thirty seconds!"

Katniss grabs her shirt from the floor, her entire body shaking. Peeta finds his own discarded shirt and pulls it over his head.

"See? I'm gone. Bye!" Blocking her view of the living room with her hand, Prim makes a beeline for the door.

"Bye," Katniss answers half-heartedly. Peeta tries to meet her eyes, but she avoids him determinedly.

"Should I...go?" he finally asks.

Long seconds pass. "I think so, yeah."

He nods, but doesn't move. "I don't want to," he admits.

She stares at her hands, then bends down and begins to pick up the playing cards they'd knocked to the floor. "You should," she says quietly.

He does.

.

Katniss doesn't meet him next Sunday. Or the next, or the next, or the next.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! This is part 1 of 2. Not sure when the second half will be done, but I really wanted to write an AU exploring what would happen if Gale died in the games.**


	2. part two - Katniss

Katniss undresses in front of the mirror that night, her fingers splayed over her stomach.

Four. She can count four ribs, four peaks and valleys running beneath her skin. It's not so bad. If she can see six, then she'll be in trouble. But she won't let it get that far.

Her fingers fall south, dipping beneath the edge of her underwear, and she feels the unfamiliar heat at the juncture of her thighs. She had wanted Peeta tonight, she admits to herself, honest before her own bare reflection.

But it had been a mistake, bringing him here. It had all been a mistake - accepting his gift of bread, walking with him in the mornings, letting him kiss her. Kissing him back.

She shivers and slides open the top drawer of the worn wooden dresser, pulling out her father's old flannel shirt, the one she saves for the coldest nights in winter. Tonight she won't have Prim's body heat to keep her warm, and thinking of Peeta will only make the chill deeper.

.

The house is still empty and silent when Katniss wakes the next morning. Prim and her mother must have spent the night at the neighbor's house. Katniss stumbles into the kitchen, stifling a yawn with her hand, and stops short when she sees Peeta's cookies still carefully arranged on a plate on the dinner table.

Her stomach growls in protest as she sweeps them into a wastebasket. She'd been so stupid, to think that she and Peeta could have been – well, anything; to think that his gifts had been anything but an attempt to impress her. To think that he could understand Katniss' life, or Katniss herself.

Prim and their mother arrive home just before lunch, weary but flushed with the pride of stewarding a new life into the world. Prim is coy, all knowing smiles and barely-contained curiosity, in the way that only someone genuinely innocent can be. That night as they're drifting off to sleep, her voice breaks open the silence. "Peeta Mellark is so handsome."

Katniss' stomach pools with shame. She doesn't answer, just tries to keep her breathing soft and even in an imitation of sleep.

"Is he your boyfriend?" Prim hesitates. "Katniss?"

Katniss rolls to face her sister. In the dark she can't find Prim's bright blue eyes, only the dim outline of her head on the pillow beside her. "No," she says shortly. "And you can't ever ask me that again. Do you understand?"

"But –"

"Do you understand?" she repeats.

Prim turns away, pulling the comforter up higher beneath her chin. "Yeah," she says quietly. "I understand."

.

Katniss heads for the woods a day early that week, on Saturday, to start her new routine: Hunt. Carry the game to the Hawthornes' house. Turn down Hazelle's offer of extra grain or potatoes.

Take the rest home. Feel guilt at Mother's look of dismay when she sees the meager offerings. Explain that she already ate her share, at the Hawthornes'. Pray that Prim won't notice how her clothes hang on her body when she undresses for bed that night, how the bones of her hips and her spine grow more prominent each week.

Remember that these lean times won't last forever, because spring is coming, and she'll make it 'til then. She has to.

Wake up early the next morning, Sunday, long before the sun is set to rise. Know that there is a boy sitting on a doorstep not five minutes away, patient, waiting. Know that eventually, he'll give up.

He has to.

.

He doesn't.

.

"A boy came looking for you today," her mother tells her a week later, as Katniss is scraping the frosty mud from her hunting boots with a stick by the front door.

Katniss falters for a moment, but if her mother notices, she doesn't acknowledge it. "What? Who?" She plays dumb, scraping harder with her stick.

"Peeta Mellark," her mother says, though she doesn't need to. "The baker's son."

"That's strange," Katniss says, and they don't speak of it again.

.

On an afternoon in March, as she's preparing to leave school, Katniss finds a folded note tucked between the textbooks piled in her cubby. _I'm sorry_, it says. _I'm worried about you. _There is no signature, just a sketch of a bird, its wings outstretched in flight.

She crumples the note into her pocket, face flushed, and looks around - but he's already gone.

.

It feels wrong, being in the woods every Saturday, instead of Sunday. Their day – the day she shared with her best friend. It feels wrong to be alone.

One morning she's deep in the forest, further than she typically ventures, and finds an empty, forgotten snare at the base of a tree. It's one of his, wound by his sure, steady hands, far more complicated than her own stiff fingers could manage.

She feels suddenly dizzy and stumbles, sliding down the tree trunk to rest on the cold earth. For the first time since he left – since he was _taken_ – she allows herself to cry.

_The Peacekeeper isn't one she knows, and she stands in silence outside the door, waiting. Finally his family files out, his mother glassy-eyed, his brothers stiff like zombies. Posy clings to her mother's leg, sobbing. At five years old, she already knows what this means._

_"Three minutes," the Peacekeeper tells her gruffly, and she slips through the doorway. Gale is across the room, staring out a window, and she thinks she sees him brush a tear from his cheek._

_"Catnip," he says, and before she can blink she's in his arms, and she wonders for one wild moment if this is where she was meant to be all along - but no, no, she can't think like that, not now, not like this -_

_"You'll be okay," she hears herself say, and it's like she's listening to another person speak, calm and detached. "You can hunt, and you're so - so _smart_, Gale. You'll -"_

_His arms tighten around her. "Please don't," he says, voice muffled against her hair. "I just - I just want to be with you. Just for a minute."_

_"Okay," she whispers, and lets him hold her in silence, the only sound the ceiling fan whirring above their heads._

_Eventually he pulls back, his eyes red but dry. "I'll take care of them," she says. "I'll make sure they eat, until you come back -"_

_"I love you, you know," he interrupts her, and she goes still, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. "Ever since - I think always, but I didn't realize it. But I love you."_

_Her mind is blank with panic. He grabs her hand in his, fingers tight around her own. She can't tell who's shaking harder. "Do you love me?" he asks desperately, eyes searching her for something, anything._

_And she knows then, in that moment, that she has to give him this. Because maybe she could one day, given time, given space. Because there is a part of her that already does, that has for a long time, in some way, though maybe not in the way he wants. Because whether it's days from now or decades from now, when Gale dies, he deserves to know that someone loved him back. That she loved him back._

_"Yes," she says quietly. "Yes, I do. I do, Gale. I -"_

_He kisses her then, her first kiss, his mouth foreign and wet against her own. She tries to kiss him back, but she doesn't know how, and does she love him? Does it matter? His fingers run up her neck and clutch at her hair, his other hand cupping her cheek; it's like his entire body is saying goodbye._

_The door opens and a voice says loudly, "Time's up." Gale doesn't let go, just keeps kissing her, until there's a hand gripping her arm, pulling her away. She stumbles backward, lips parted in silence, and the last time she touches Gale Hawthorne is the brush of their fingertips, as light and fleeting as a breath of wind._

_"I'll come back for you," he calls after her, and the door slams shut._

_._

She finds another note in her cubby a week later: _I miss you._

She shoves it into her pocket, just like the last.

And when she gets home that afternoon, she slips it carefully into the corner of her top dresser drawer, hidden beneath a pair of woolen socks, just like the last.

.

She misses him, too.

She misses his hands, his mouth; the sandpaper stubble that lingered on her skin long after they parted. But mostly _him_: his stories, his laugh, even his questions.

Sometimes she thinks that she dreamed him up, a body to fill the empty space she carries beside her. That the baker's son slept peacefully those Sunday mornings, tucked cozy in a warm bed, unknowing, while she sleepwalked the streets with a corpse in her bag and a ghost at her heel.

It would've been a good dream, though, and Katniss doesn't have those. Not anymore.

.

Eventually winter thaws, as it always does, and the forest returns to life. On a damp morning in early April she kills six, seven, eight squirrels in three hours' time, and nearly weeps with relief. It's enough for Gale's family, for her family, for herself. Her heart pounds painfully with excitement.

Hazelle watches with a patient smile as Katniss skins the squirrels in the tiny kitchen, but when she moves to leave, the older woman catches her hand.

"We'll be fine, you know," she says carefully, squeezing Katniss' hand. "I appreciate all that you've done. But you've got your own family to take care of." Her eyes are soft, understanding; but she _doesn't_ understand, not really.

"I know," Katniss says, a false lightness buoying the words. "I like to help out. He... would've done the same."

"He would've," Hazelle agrees, and Katniss feels suddenly uncomfortable under her gaze.

"I'll be back next Sunday," she says, grabbing her game bag off of the counter. As she reaches the door she realizes her mistake. "Saturday," she corrects herself. "I meant Saturday."

Hazelle's shoulders lift in a shrug. "You could come on Sunday," she says. A knife glints in her hands, and she begins to cut the muscle away from the bone. "It's still bread day."

.

_I just want a chance to talk to you_, the final note reads. _I'll be there this Sunday. If you don't come, I won't bother you again._

_Please come._

_._

Hazelle's words echo in her head all week. _It's still bread day._

But she'd thought – after all these weeks…

She'll never understand Peeta Mellark.

.

His eyes don't light up when he sees her, the way she'd expected. He doesn't rush towards her, arms outstretched for an embrace, lips already parted for a kiss.

Peeta just watches her, his gaze steady as she walks down the gravel road slowly, her father's hunting jacket hanging loose on her shoulders.

Katniss stops by the edge of the house. "Why are you still bringing bread?" she demands, wrapping her arms tightly around her middle, the worn leather of the jacket bunching between her fingers.

"I didn't think you'd come," he says, evading the question. Maybe he doesn't have an answer, she realizes. But she says nothing, just stands in place, her eyes roaming over everything but him.

He says, "I've missed you."

_Me too_, she almost answers; but she catches the words just before they escape, crushing them to dust at the tip of her throat.

"I can't stop thinking about you," he says, and when her eyes finally flick to his she regrets it: they're wide and sad, yearning, begging her to respond. "I can't stop thinking that if I didn't leave, or if – I've been so _worried_, Katniss."

"I don't need your pity," she snaps suddenly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I don't pity you," he says. "I _care about you._"

The words wrap around her heart like a snake, trying to burrow its way in. She won't let it. She can't let it.

"Say something," he says. "Can't you just talk to me?"

Silence. She can hardly breathe.

"You can't keep doing this," Peeta continues, pleading. "You're just giving and giving, and –"

"I made a _promise_," she chokes out, and he stops. Katniss is shaking. "I made a promise," she repeats, "to someone who loved me."

Peeta swallows. "And this is what he wanted?" he asks, raising his arm to gesture at her body, so small in her father's big, battered coat. "For you to starve yourself for them?"

"You don't even know what starving means," she spits back.

"What if _I _loved you?" he demands, taking a sudden step towards her. "Would it matter then? What I wanted?"

"You don't," she says, numb. It's not possible. For love to take root in cold early mornings and hands bumping together and kisses in secret by the back door – it's too much. It couldn't happen.

She blinks, and then he's in front of her, and he kisses her. His mouth is sure against hers, his hands steady on her face. He knows what he's saying with this kiss. _She _knows.

Despite that, Katniss melts against him.

When they pull apart to gasp for air she drops her face to the crook of his neck, and his arms wrap around her tightly, his breath hot against the crown of her head. "Please don't run away," Peeta murmurs into her hair.

She pinches her eyes shut, and she feels his shoulder twitch when one of her tears drips onto his skin. "Okay," she whispers. "Okay."

.

She walks him into town, and they say goodbye at the back door of the bakery. His lips are just like they were the first time they did this: a little chapped, but warm and firm. In some ways, it's as though nothing has changed.

But now she's got Peeta's heart in her palms, and she knows it's a matter of _when_, not _if_, it will slip from her fingers.

.

On Tuesdays Peeta doesn't have to work in the bakery after school, so Katniss brings him to the meadow, and they hide in the long grass.

Some days they talk, and some days they kiss, and some days they do more. She knows that one day – soon – it will have to stop, but for now she craves his lips and teeth and tongue, the jolt that runs through her when her leg slips between his and she can feel him hard against her thigh.

But the first time his fingers drift up under her shirt, skimming along the soft skin of her belly, she freezes and pulls away.

Peeta covers her hand with his, pressing her palm against the damp earth. "That night, I didn't mean…"

They don't talk about that night. Ever. He says, "I think you're beautiful."

"I don't care about that," she tells him.

He rubs his hand over his face in frustration. "I was – I thought you were _dying, _Katniss." She pulls her hand away. "What do you want me to say?"

Katniss thinks about for a moment, and tells him the truth. "Nothing."

Peeta laughs, pressing his nose against her shoulder. "That's too easy."

She doesn't know how to argue with him, and she suspects she never will. So she pulls her shirt over her head and grabs his hand, pressing it to her breast. His fingers tighten reflexively.

They're done with talking after that.

.

She dreams about Gale that night. It's raining. _**Is it real? **_he asks her. His eyes are bloodshot, and his mouth never moves. Sometimes he looks like Peeta, but always he's Gale.

She doesn't understand. _Is what real?_

_**You know.**_

_I don't. _

_I don't – is what real?_

_Gale?_

When she wakes her pillow is wet, and Prim is at her shoulder, lips pressed together with worry. "You were crying," Prim whispers.

Katniss wipes at her cheeks uselessly. "I had a dream about Dad," she lies.

Prim hugs her with her skinny, little-girl arms, and falls asleep that way minutes later. Katniss lays in bed, stroking her sister's downy hair, waiting for the sun to rise.

.

As the weather grows warmer, Katniss grows bolder.

It's muggy and hot one afternoon, the threat of rain hanging in the clouds, when she slips her hands into Peeta's pants for the first time. He chokes in surprise, resting his hand lightly on her wrist. "You don't have to."

"I want to," she says simply, and she helps him push down his pants. His skin is surprisingly soft but _he _is hard beneath it, and when she tightens her fingers around him he falls back onto the grass, resting on his elbows, groaning.

She moves her hand experimentally for a while, up and down, running her fingertips over his tip and down his shaft. He asks her to lick her hand and she understands as soon as her wet hand wraps back around him, her palm sliding easily over his cock. Peeta comes with a loud grunt, spilling onto her hand and his stomach. She wipes her hand discreetly on the grass as he cleans himself up.

He rolls up against her when she lays down beside him, resting an arm over her middle, nuzzling at her neck. "Katniss," he says quietly.

It's more than just her name. She can hear it so clearly in his tone: it's a preamble, the first step to a confession.

"Shh," she interrupts, laying her hand over his where it rests on her hipbone. "I'm tired, let's nap. That was…hard work," she jokes nervously.

Peeta pauses, then laughs, squeezing her against him briefly. "Yeah, okay," he agrees. He kisses her slow and deep.

Peeta always kisses her like he's got all the time in the world; that's what frightens her the most.

.

Hazelle doesn't say anything when Katniss starts coming on Sundays again. Katniss doesn't offer an explanation.

She's skinning a rabbit in the Hawthornes' kitchen one afternoon when Rory appears at her side, silent and watching. Finally he says, "Can you teach me to do that?"

She looks at him. He's thirteen now, a year younger than Gale was when she met him – but older than she was when she started hunting alone in the woods. Gale at fourteen was already tall and strapping, practically a man; Rory at thirteen is almost as tall but gawky yet, still growing into himself.

Even so. Rory is smart, and quiet. There's no reason he couldn't learn to hunt with Gale's old bow and arrows. She feels stupid for not realizing it earlier.

Katniss nods. "Sure you're not too squeamish?"

He smirks in that way that only a thirteen-year-old boy can; it screams _can you believe this _girl_ thinks I can't handle a little blood and guts?_ "Nah, I'm not too squeamish."

"Alright."

Rory finishes the rabbit, and the next Sunday morning he's waiting for her by the fence before the sun has even risen.

.

For a while, life is okay. Better, even. But in mid-June, construction for the Reaping stage starts at the Justice Building, and Katniss feels herself slipping away.

It's not intentional, at least not at first. She _should _be home before dark. She _should _spend more time with Rory in the woods, making sure he catches enough to feed his family. She _should _help Prim with her homework after school, especially on Tuesdays.

Peeta feels it, too, she can tell. She's surprised when he doesn't cling tighter – instead he says _Okay_ and presses a kiss to her cheek. He lets her drift. And it doesn't feel freeing the way she told herself it would; she feels a tight, panicky pressure in her breastbone in the moments when she sees him disappear around a corner, when their fingers unclasp, when his lips break away from her skin.

But when she finally forces herself to tell him it's over, he takes her hand between both of his own and presses it against his chest. She can feel his heart thrumming wildly, like it's trying to break through his skin to reach her.

"I know that you think…that if you don't have me, you can't lose me," he says. "But if it happens, it's going to feel the same way no matter what. It's going to hurt, Katniss."

She doesn't answer. She knows that he's right.

"I love you," he blurts out. His voice holds steady but his eyes are wide, scared. "I don't care what happens today, or tomorrow. That won't change."

Katniss pulls her hand from his grasp silently and slides her arms around his waist. She can't say it back. It might not be today, or tomorrow, or even the next day, but all things come to an end. And love – it's nothing, not without a body to contain it.

.

A boy and a girl are Reaped, two names Katniss has only heard in passing, and the relief is almost crippling. Peeta finds her in the swirl of bodies when it's over, wrapping his arms around her so tightly that she gasps for breath.

"I thought –" But she hadn't thought, she'd _known_. Known that Peeta would be chosen because his odds were linked up with hers now, and she was always the losing bet.

"It's okay," he whispers against her neck. "We're okay."

For the first time, she believes him.

.

Peeta undresses her in the meadow that evening, slowly, reverently, pressing warm, wet kisses to each new patch of skin that he uncovers. He lays her down in the long grass and as his tongue moves from her collarbone down to her bare breasts, she shifts, feeling the blades of grass poke against her skin like pinpricks. _I'm alive_, she thinks.

He's brought a condom with him, something he admits with a blush, but she only pulls him closer, folding her legs around him. She's not surprised. There was a shift between them at the Reaping today, though she's not sure what. It could have been the way her knees turned to jelly when she realized _it's not him it's not it's not him_; or the desperate dig of his fingers into her skin when they'd embraced in the crowd; or something else altogether. All she knows is that she wants him inside of her, to be a part of her, because that way maybe she can protect him forever.

As he rolls the condom over his cock she wonders briefly if this could have happened with Gale. If she would have bared herself to him one day, let him touch her, fuck her. The thought unsettles her.

She hadn't known when he left that he wasn't a virgin – when she thought of Gale she'd thought of arrows and traps and food and warmth, and not much else – but after what he'd said in his tribute interview, that he loved her, there were a few girls at school who couldn't resist. They were jealous. They said things like _You know he was thinking about me _and _He told me I was the best, the best one, even better than you_.

And she knew it was lies – he hadn't said that because he couldn't have, he'd never touched Katniss beyond an awkward hug or clasp of hands. But it struck her somewhere deep inside that she hadn't really known him, not all of him, when it came down to it.

Peeta pushes into her then, all the way inside – _deep_ – and Katniss whimpers with pain and pleasure, clutching at his back. It burns in a way she didn't expect, fresh each time he thrusts back into her, but he's gentle, littering soft kisses and even softer words across her skin. "I love you," she hears him whisper, and that _thing _coils deep within her: that Peeta thing, that thing only he can draw out of her.

What happened before – it doesn't matter. Nothing – no one – matters in this moment but Peeta, right here, right now. She lets the feeling drag her under.

.

It's over before too long, and she's almost relieved when he slips out of her and makes her come with his fingers instead. Peeta wraps himself around her when they're finished, pulling her back up against his naked chest, his breath hot on her neck.

"Did you like it?" he whispers, his fingers tracing lazy, looping patterns around her nipple.

Her lips twitch. _I did, I do._ "Yes."

His muscles tighten against her almost imperceptibly, and she feels him swallow hard. "Do you regret it?"

Katniss cranes her neck around to look at him. His face is raw, and open, and not for the first time she can see how fragile this boy is, who tosses sacks of flour over his shoulder like they're nothing. "I don't know yet," she tells him honestly.

His next breath is deep and shaky. "Do you still love him?"

It's not what she expected. "Peeta, I never –" She squirms in his arms and turns to face him, resting her palm on his cheek. His eyes close at her touch. "Yes, but – it wasn't like _this_. There's…you're…different."

Her cheeks burn; she doesn't know how to explain it without crossing a line she swore she'd never even toe.

But here she is, lying flush and naked against him, a pleasing ache between her legs from where he'd filled her. She crossed that line a long time ago, she realizes. Maybe even that morning when she'd traded him a rabbit for bread that wasn't even hers.

"It's only you," she whispers.

Peeta kisses her in answer, moving over her again, entwining their fingers together as he moves her arms up over her head. The only sound is the soft, wet smack of their lips, and the crickets in the field around them.

He pulls away for a moment and just looks at her. She looks back. "What do you want from me, Peeta?" she whispers.

She tenses in preparation for the answer. She thinks he'll say, _Everything. Sunday mornings, Monday mornings, every morning. Smiles, frowns, laughs, shouts. Bread and fire and babies. All of it, all of you, just you._

Instead, his lips turn up a little. He presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth. He says, "Whatever you're willing to give me."

Katniss smiles.

* * *

**I hope this was a satisfying ending after such a long wait. Kind of desperate to know what people think, so if you're so inclined, I would love to hear your thoughts!**

**Also forgot to mention in the first part - the title is from The Crane Wife 3 by the Decemberists.**

**ALSO: So many thanks to nmoreblack, who helped me out with this second part and assured me it was a good switch to Katniss' POV. :)**


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